[Footnote 1:  Four volumes of this poetry were published under the title of “Poetical Amusements at a villa near Bath.”  The following lines are a fair sample of the bouts-rimes.

    The pen which I now take and brandish
    Has long lain useless in my standish. 
    Know, every maid, from her own patten,
    To her who shines in glossy sattin,
    That could they now prepare an oglio
    From best receipt of book in folio,
    Ever so fine, for all their puffing,
    I should prefer a butter’d muffin;
    A muffin Jove himself might feast on,
    If eat with Miller at Batheaston.

The following are the concluding lines of a poem on Beauty, by Lord
Palmerston:—­

    In vain the stealing hand of Time
    May pluck the blossoms of their prime;
    Envy may talk of bloom decay’d,
    How lilies droop and roses fade;
    But Constancy’s unalter’d truth,
    Regardful of the vows of youth—­
    Affection that recalls the past,
    And bids the pleasing influence last,
    Shall still preserve the lover’s flame
    In every scene of life the same;
    And still with fond endearments blend
    The wife, the mistress, and the friend!

“Lady Miller’s collection of verses by fashionable people, which were put into her vase at Bath-Easton, in competition for honorary prizes, being mentioned, Dr. Johnson held them very cheap:  ‘Bouts-rimes,’ said he, ’is a mere conceit, and an old conceit; I wonder how people were persuaded to write in that manner for this lady.’  I named a gentleman of his acquaintance who wrote for the vase.  JOHNSON—­’He was a blockhead for his pains!’ BOSWELL—­’The Duchess of Northumberland wrote.’—­’Sir, the Duchess of Northumberland may do what she pleases; nobody will say anything to a lady of her high rank:  but I should be apt to throw ... verses in his face.” (Boswell, vol. v. p. 227.)]

OPPOSITION OF THE FRENCH PARLIAMENTS TO TURGOT’S MEASURES.

TO DR. GEM.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Dr. Gem was an English physician who had been for some time settled in Paris.  He was uncle to Canning’s friend and colleague, Mr. Huskisson.]

ARLINGTON STREET, April 4, 1776.

It is but fair, when one quits one’s party, to give notice to those one abandons—­at least, modern patriots, who often imbibe their principles of honour at Newmarket, use that civility.  You and I, dear Sir, have often agreed in our political notions; and you, I fear, will die without changing your opinion.  For my part, I must confess I am totally altered; and, instead of being a warm partisan of liberty, now admire nothing but despotism.  You will naturally ask, what place I have gotten, or what bribe I have taken?  Those are the criterions of political changes in England—­but, as my conversion is of foreign extraction, I shall not be the richer for it.  In one word, it is the